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Begotten Synopsis
Begotten takes place in the far future of an alternate history. Mankind lives in a warped state of progression and devolution, where society and technology have both skyrocketed and regressed over a thousands year long dark age. The histories of Man have been forgotten, forcefully suppressed by an oppressive regime that dominates through its Faith and slavery. When the sciences, law, culture and values warp into a singular monotheistic dogma that has overtaken generations of men, the result is a world that is hated by its own God, leading Him to suicide. Thus begins the events of Begotten. Chapter I - God Has Committed Suicide Following the near apocalyptic state caused by the Holy Hierarchy wars, mankind had seen the majority of life on Earth extinguished. The few who remained were swept with such visceral madness that eventually manifested into religious piety. A dark age consumed the planet, where great technological advances and historical documents of the previous era were sought out and destroyed. It took a thousand years for this band of men to create a vast empire known simply as the Holy Hierarchy. Said to be a kingdom of heaven, this civilization was dominated by the iron fist of Lord Maximus, a man often perceived as a god. The Holy Hierarchy took its religion from the now extinct abrahamic faiths of the old world, and twisted them together to formulate what is now known as the Glaze. Instead of following a Christ god seen with a human form, the Glaze saw the Light, an all-powerful essence of pure creation that was vibrant throughout the faithful. When God looked down upon his children to see what they have done, He wept tears of horror. His children have twisted his vision to create an oppressive empire that stripped its people of all rights and dignity. They have enslaved entire races for their dark skin, stating that they were untouched by the Light and therefor must serve in chains. The Holy Hierarchy had grown to be the single largest civilization left on Earth, only rivaled by the brutal Northern Gores and the mysterious Eastern Nigerii Empire, and indeed the Hierarchy was set in a constant state of war and genocide, all the while the religious leaders and men of noble stature feasted in their extravagant palace chambers. It was decided then that God would disembowel Himself, releasing Him of his unimaginable horror and regret. From the bloody festering intestines of the now dead God came the very deity that would ensure the destruction of the Holy Hierarchy. The Undergod slipped into the mortal realm, and with It came the catalysts that sprinkled across the lands; the very essence of the deceased God that could be used by the humans to construct their own deities, for better or worse. Indeed what followed was a genocide that even the Church had never seen before. The forces of Lord Maximus held a strong defense of District One, but in short time it fell by the demon hordes of the Undergod. When the greatest civilization on Earth was presented with the ultimatum of absolute extinction, the Holy Hierarchy shattered like glass. Millions died, and all hope of divine intervention seemed to be lost, as even the most devout servants of God heard only silence in their prayers. The tide of death came to a halt when the Undergod shifted Its attention to the realm of Hell, and indeed this decision proved to be the Divine Purifier's one mistake. In this brief moment of silence the various church authorities across the shattered land of the Hierarchy discovered the true power of the catalysts. When the Undergod eventually returned to finish purifying the planet, It found Its power to be repelled by the barriers set up by the church authorities. Many sanctuaries were devised, each known as villages of the Light. Great walls were erected and with them the pride of the church authorities grew. Several priests of Light began calling themselves the Royal Pope, their lust for power overwhelming them. These acts by the papacy of the Light sparked a black age like none other. The Undergod and Its rival Lucifer were now in a seemingly unending siege against Earth, with the Church of the Light maintaining a pathetic grip on their sanctuaries. The Church started taking additional measures of protection as it was revealed that the power of the catalysts could not maintain their protection much longer. Massive underground factories were constructed, with factory lines dedicated to the slaughter of humans deemed unworthy. Conveyor belts led stillbirthed children along to meat grinders that processed their flesh for later consumption. Even more unimaginable cruelty was being constructed by the Papacy in the name of the greater good, the contorted vision of the Light. All the while a new order known as the Gatekeepers were assembled to guard the sanctuaries and gather enough catalysts to construct a new god that would serve the Church and their desires. With the small population of men left, faith was enforced to the absolute, even by previous Holy Hierarchy standards. Those whose faith waned even slightly off the direction of the Light were sought out and burned at the stake for heresy. Worse were those who followed the pathetic Northern gods, or even the Dark Prince himself. The Inquisition was once again restored to power to ensure that none would stand in the way of the Empire of the Light's rise to domination. Armed with scrap metal blades and pathetic black powder firearms, the Church of the Light and its followers have a clear path of conquest to restore the lost glory of the Holy Hierarchy and save their race from extinction. So begins the Crusade. Chapter II - Rise of the Cleansers Pitiful. An Empire destroyed, the remains scattered across the desolation. Those who remain are like maggots feasting on a carcass. They are weak, and must be purged. So it was said, a mighty snap of his Minister's fingers gave forth the creation of a new race. What followed was his minions sent out on a sure quest: the complete annihilation of the County Districts. These lands were the filth of the Hierarchy, even in its prime years. Men deemed unworthy, the advanced calculations of the Glaze deeming their existence as sub par. Those touched by the Light could never associate with such filth. Now they are few in number, and it is time for the reaping. Holy men went from village to hut and hideout, finding any and all who survived the Undergod's wrath. Thinking themselves saved, the survivors and their inferior minds were herded off to the factories protected by the Minister's mighty walls. None would return. A small price to pay, yet those who witnessed the following events would surely doubt their words. Mothers and their children sent along conveyor belts to their doom. Tens of thousands of innocents crushed and ground and stamped and shredded into paste. Even the shared might of their screams were drowned out by the factory machines at work, belching out their steam and grey misery. When it was done, it was deemed that there was not enough human sludge for the ritual to be complete. The holy men were forced to feed all the weak and wounded to the machine. Those who resisted, thinking they have gone too far, were sent to their mechanical death alongside the rest. Finally, after weeks of slaughter had ended, the factory produced its product. The Minister was led down to the factory floor to see the birthing of his new children. He counted twenty of them, small creatures that resembled human babies, yet it was hard to say. Their skin was pale, their eyes unblinking, and there were no screams of a newborn. The only cries that filled that room were that of the Minister himself, dropping to his knees to witness the beauty of perfection. The twenty chosen children grew fast and strong. It took only ten days for them to reach the height of an adult, and at that point they were fully lingual, communicating intelligent thought and criticizing their surroundings. The plan was for them to be perfect soldiers, to carry out their Lord's will and slay mighty demons. What they did not expect was for these chosen children to know their inferiority and sin. When the Master-at-Arms came to give them training, he was shocked to realize that they were far greater fighters than he had ever seen, even when they weren't even a month old. One day a High Gatekeeper stood in their way, demanding them to stand down after breaking four commoner's necks. One stepped forth, and plucked the beating heart from the officer's chest as if merely swatting a fly. The Minister came to the conclusion that his children have grown bored of the inferior minds of men, and decided to speed up their original plan. He presented twenty matching suits of powered armor, and massive gatling cannons loaded with explosive ammunition. Such equipment were common in the glory days of the Hierarchy, technology crafted by the greatest minds of District One. For the Minister now, this small fragment of the past was their greatest treasure, a contrast to the patched together leathers of the average Gatekeeper guardsman. All the gifts that they offered to the children have been refused thus far, as the twenty pale sentinels stood stern and naked, their perfect figures not offended by the ragtag garments of this false sanctuary. The children stepped forth to their suits, their actions mirroring each others as if sharing a singular mind. They crushed the titanium plates, collapsing the metal that was built to withstand the vacuum of space. One sent forth a casual backhand strike to the Minister, turning his head a full 180 degrees, dropping his arrogant old body onto the marble floors of his crumbling palace. Now that their suspicions had been confirmed, and they had seen the full truth and the purpose of their creation, the children saw fit to exterminate the remaining meat-creatures that inhabited this tortured place. In their minds, the cold and calculating vast intellect saw their actions as mercy, as they walked from hall to hall sending single strikes to precise locations of the human body with such strength as to kill them instantly. In their two weeks living with them, they had observed how these humans fought, where they hid, and most importantly, how best to kill them. It took twenty of these children to kill the remainders of that village, which at the time was 327 men, women, and children. Most of them were already on the verge of death, tattered with disease and infected wounds, or too weak to withstand the next daily onslaught of the Begotten demons. Like clockwork, the Begotten came at their usual time. Banging the metal gates, scratching at the concrete walls, screaming their horrid screams. The children knew the men, they knew the way their minds worked and how they are driven with such pathetic desires. Yet these Begotten things made them ever so curious. In a way, they always knew that they were created by the men as a weapon to fight against them. When they opened the gates, the Begotten thralls and demons strolled in, walking over the piles of bodies that the children had created. The Thralls shambled along, with bodies that resembled men but their minds were taken by the void, their eyes wide open and staring into unceasing darkness. They were of no threat to the chosen, walking past them and paying them no mind as they searched the empty sanctuary for survivors. It was a curious thing for the children, a question that even their infinite minds could not answer. Why did the Begotten spare the chosen? Were they the one and only exception to the Undergod's unceasing destruction? For the years to follow the chosen children wandered the desolate remains of Earth, seeking the purpose of their creation. They were like ghosts to the billions of lost souls that populated the land. Any terrified and hopeless survivor not already taken by the void they came across would be put down with ruthless mercy. They did not eat, they did not sleep, they did not do anything but their task. Aside from the shambling thralls, the world they have been birthed into was so empty, so dead. That was until they heard a voice, a whispering from a dark place that they did not know. It was a voice from something that had never spoke before, a voice that nothing alive or dead had ever heard until the chosen did. While they had been created to fight against these dark beings, the chosen knew that their answers could only come from this unknown darkness. So they replied, and they were consumed by the dark. All twenty sentinels stood silent, face to face with the Undergod in his very own realm. There were no exchange of words, as such primitive grunts had no meaning in this place, a realm beyond the physical plain. All that mattered were their minds and thought, as they conversed with this so called God for what would seem like a thousand years to a regular human brain. They went over topics such as the meaning of life, the purpose of their existence, and the reason for the Undergod's destruction. His story captivated them, and for the very first time the children wept, tears that turned into thundering rain in the lesser realms. At that moment they knew that the Undergod was their father, and as their children they were to complete His legacy of absolute flawless perfection. It seemed that everything had been set in motion. Their minds were filled with the exact plan by which the Undergod would purify the planet and bring forth absolute perfection. They were taught the ways of the Holy Hierarchy, the cursed corrupt civilization that caused God to kill himself out of shame. They were then told about his brother, the fallen angel of Lucifer who looked upon the Undergod with envy, and how he used all the power in his unholy being to stop the world from falling into their father's hands. Then they were taught about the Family, a collection of ancient beings of great power and unknown origin, something so unfamiliar and choatic that even the Undergod shudders to envision them. Then they were taught everything in between, the lesser powers that would fall one after the other. The Undergod gave them their mission, but the children pleaded, asking for one more answer that troubled their minds. They asked about God, and if He had planned the Undergod's creation, and how He fit into his plan. Then it happened. For a brief moment, a fraction of a second, the children could feel something impure going through their father's mind. For a God that was meant to be so pure, they saw a contradiction, a moment of weakness and indecisiveness. The chosen children turned on their father, rejecting His plan and vision, thinking every truth that He had told them was a lie, another arrogant being using them for selfish gain as the Minister did. The children attacked, using their minds to rip, shred, dismantle the fabric of reality that was the Undergod. A horrifying scream erupted from the Undergod himself, and He made His counter attack. The chosen children used all the power that they had in their perfect beings to attack the Undergod in his own realm, cleansing the imperfect being. The Undergod was on the verge of death, a defeat at the hands of his very own creation. The Undergod screeched, and the children's onslaught halted just for a fraction of a second, enough for Him to turn their attacks against them. A void unending, a thousand trillion paradoxes that could not be answered, a complex infinite architectural structure that went on forever, all surging through the children's perfect yet young and undeveloped minds. It was too much for them to take, and like that they had been defeated, yet the Undergod continued on. They experienced a trillion deaths all in an instant, unceasing agonies that never ended, a smiting punishment that was an infinite times worse than the worst infernos of a billion Hells. In only seconds they lived a thousand lives and a thousand deaths that lasted a million years, each one ending in a horrifying insanity. All the while they heard the same screeching noise of their father's anger and disappointment. The children were imperfect. Opening their eyes to the usual hellfire of the Begotten lands, the twenty men got to their feet, groggy from what felt like a very long sleep, and a very bad dream. "Who the fuck are you?" asked one of them. Their stomachs were grumbling, and they felt the need to defecate soon. Another felt the need to breed, to rape the next female they came across for some brief moment of pleasure. "I'm bored. I want to fucking kill" another said. They solved their hunger problem when they came across a mother and her child. The mother was raped many times, and the child was put over a fire until it was burnt meat. They killed many that night, and when they grew cold they put clothes on their pale bodies from those they had slaughtered. This world is rotting, its people are maggots, and twenty pale creatures that resembled men stepped forth into the unknown to murder and cleanse.